Thursday, May 1, 2014

The 2013 U.S.-Global Leadership Project report is the latest evidence that you can fool all the people some of the time and some people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time | 93 Countries Who Have Changed Their Minds About Obama

Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire

Anne Norton is professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.

The teachings of political theorist Leo Strauss (1899–1973)
have recently received new attention, as political observers have become
aware of the influence Strauss’s students have had in shaping
conservative agendas of the Bush administration—including the war on
Iraq. This provocative book examines Strauss’s ideas and the ways in
which they have been appropriated, or misappropriated, by senior
policymakers.

Anne Norton, a political theorist trained by some
of Strauss’s most famous students, is well equipped to write on Strauss
and Straussians. She tells three interwoven narratives: the story of Leo
Strauss, a Jewish German-born émigré, who carried European philosophy
into a new world; the story of the philosophic lineage that came from
Leo Strauss; and the story of how America has been made a moral
battleground by the likes of Paul Wolfowitz, Leon Kass, Carnes Lord, and
Irving Kristol—Straussian conservatives committed to an American
imperialism they believe will usher in a new world order.

93 Countries Who Have Changed Their Minds About Obama

During the Bush years, people all over the world were horrified by
America’s aggression, human rights abuses and militarism. By 2008, only
one in three people around the world approved of the job performance of
U.S. leaders. The election of President Obama broadcast his message of
hope and change far beyond U.S. shores, and Gallup’s 2009 U.S.-Global Leadership Project (USGLP) recorded a sharp rise in global public approval of U.S. leadership to 49 percent.

And yet
fooling all the people all the time is precisely the Straussian model
for American politics and government. Behind a smokescreen of democracy
and American values, a capitalist political system recycles wealth into
political power and vice versa. Behind a consumerist American Dream, a
corporate command economy drives a concentration of wealth and power
such as 20th-century totalitarians never imagined, supported by a
corresponding explosion of poverty, debt and mass criminalization. And
behind an endlessly waving flag, a militarized foreign policy wrecks
country after country in the name of democracy.

If Leo Strauss was right, the American people will passively accept a
diet of endless propaganda and deception fed to us by a wealthy,
powerful high priesthood as they gorge themselves on the fruits of our
labor. If he was wrong, we will reject Straussian politics, organize
effectively to elect a very different political class, and ensure that
they democratically represent us to build the better world we all know
is possible. But the problems facing the world today will not wait very
long for us to make up our minds whether Leo Strauss was right or wrong
in his dark, disdainful view of who we are.